Minooka TAP – Teaching History Where It Happened

HoopsMania

Hey there folks. We’re real excited to introduce our latest fund raiser. We think this one is going to be huge for both the group and you.

Today we introduced HoopsMania, a basketball related raffle ticket. We’re asking our students to sell HoopsMania tickets to friends, family, and neighbors. We’re asking moms and dads to ask co-workers and friends. Pretty much anyone can play HoopsMania.

How does it work?

It’s real simple. Each person that wants to play will buy a ticket. Each ticket has 8 randomly selected basketball teams that will take part in this spring’s March Madness tournament.

The player (or HoopsMania on their website) will keep track of the points each team scores during the tournament. The ticket that has the teams that scored the most total points in the tournament wins.

First place gets $1,000.

Second place gets $500.

Third place gets $200.

The next 25 highest scores will each earn $20.

The ticket looks just like the one on the right, but if you want a closer look or more explanation, go to the HoopsMania‘s website.

What do we get?

Well, it’s funny that you ask, because we’re pretty excited about this part.

Each ticket costs $10.

$3 will be sent back to HoopsMania to cover the costs of the tickets and prizes.

That leaves a $7 profit for our group from each ticket sold.

We’re really nice though. We don’t want to keep all that money; we like to share.

We will split the money with the family that sells the ticket.

For all Spain travelers, we will split the $7 right down the middle. TAP will take $3.50 to pay for group expenses, and we will give you $3.50 towards your trip. Sell 10 tickets and you’ve earned $35, enough to pay for a few lunches. Sell 100 tickets and you’ve put a big dent in the cost of your trip. Sell 1,000 tickets and Mr. Curtis wants to be your new best friend.

For all members of the Japan group and all the 6th grade TAP members, we’ll take a little bigger chunk. We’ll take $5.00 for TAP and put $2.00 in an account to help pay for your trip when it’s time. Don’t worry though, when we do this again in your 8th grade year, we’ll give you the 50/50 portion then.

What do you do?

Easy. Some of you already picked up a packet of information, including your first 5 HoopsMania tickets. For those folks – start selling. Sell the ticket, collect the money, have the buyer fill out the stub, and bring the stub and money back to TAP next week. Then start working on E-Tickets.

If you missed today’s meeting, that’s okay. You can pick up your packet from Mr. Curtis any time this week (or next week, but why would you want to miss valuable selling time?). Of course, you could get a head start by selling some E-Tickets.

What the heck are E-Tickets?

If you have a packet already, or if you’re coming to get one later, you can already start selling E-Tickets. An E-Ticket is an electronic Hoops Mania ticket. You can sell tickets online and still make money for the group and for yourself!!!

Once they go there, they can buy as many tickets as they want. They’ll fill out a simple form with credit card info, name, address, and all that stuff. The most important part for you is at the bottom of that page – there will be a box marked “Seller’s Name.” You want them to put your name in that box, otherwise we won’t know it was you that sold that E-Ticket.

How can I begin selling E-Tickets?

Great question. I already posted the E-Ticket info on our Facebook page. If I were you, I’d copy that on to my own Facebook, that way all my Facebook friends have a chance to buy a ticket, win some cash, and help you raise money for your trip. I might even send out a Facebook message to all my friends, asking them to help me out.

Hey, Mr. Curtis, could you write a sample email for us that we could just copy/paste and send out to all our friends and family to get them to support Minooka TAP and us by playing HoopsMania?

Yes. Like I said, I’m nice. You can just fill in the blank parts and copy/paste this to send to your email contacts.

Dear __________________,

My name is ______________________ and I’m working really hard to go on an exciting educational trip with the Minooka Travel Abroad Program to ________________________ at the end of my 8th grade year.

Not many kids get selected to take part in this awesome program, so I feel really lucky already.

Our latest fundraiser is a really fun one that I think you might enjoy. We’re selling raffle tickets for a game called HoopsMania. It’s related to the college March Madness basketball tournament, but you don’t need to know anything about sports to play. It’s real simple. For just $10 you get a ticket with 8 randomly assigned teams on it. Everyone who plays gets a different combination of teams. The ticket that has the teams that score the most combined points in the tournament wins $1,000.

There are prizes for 2nd ($500), 3rd ($200), and the next 25 highest scores too ($20). The cool part is, you don’t even need to pay attention to basketball if you don’t want to. We’ll keep track of all the scores and bring some money to you if you won.

This is a great fundraiser for us, because not only will it make money for the group’s expenses on our trip, but each ticket I sell, Minooka TAP will pay for _______________________ (either $3.50 or $2.00) of my trip. I’m hoping to sell at least _______________ tickets to help my parents with the costs.

If you’d like to play or learn more about the game, just click here . If you do purchase a ticket or two, please put my name __________________ and email address _____________________ in the “Seller” spot.

If you’d like to learn more about Minooka TAP and their programs, please visit their website.

Thanks so much for helping me out with my trip. Me and Minooka TAP both appreciate the support. Love, _______________________________